Question

I’m trying to commit a new version to my SVN repository but am met with this error:

svn: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: Could not use external editor to fetch log message; consider setting the $SVN_EDITOR environment variable or using the –message (-m) or –file (-F) options
svn: None of the environment variables SVN_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR are set, and no ‘editor-cmd’ run-time configuration option was found
new-computers-computer:trunk newcomputer$

What’s wrong?

Answer 1

Justin,

Every time you commit with Subversion, you need to write a summary of what is being committed (i.e. the commit message). The error is because Subversion is trying to launch a text editor so that you can write a commit message, but the editor is never being launched. Setting the SVN_EDITOR in your .bash_profile will do the trick. Here are some detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set vim as the default editor used by svn: Original link dead, replaced with archive.is mirror

Alternatively, as suggested in error message, you can load a commit message from an existing file with -f, or pass in a message with -m.

Examples:

svn commit -m "Fixed a regression that prevented pigs from flying (resolves issue #123, but causes strange behavior elsewhere)"
svn commit -f /path/to/a/file/with/a/long/commit/message.txt